Proposed CYCLOPS junction in Chorlton, Greater Manchester.
TFGM
It’s relatively easy to protect cyclists on busy roads—use curbs to carve out a cycleway—but not at all easy at junctions. This is where a lot of the U.K.’s cycle-specific infrastructure gives up and merges cyclists back into general traffic. The Dutch roundabout—so called because it was developed in the Netherlands—is one solution to this protection problem and the first large scale one will soon be built in Cambridge. But traffic engineers in Greater Manchester believe a more generic solution they will soon build in Bolton could be a step-change for cyclist safety.
“It is frankly genius,” says Greater Manchester’s cycling and walking commissioner Chris Boardman, “and we’ll soon be wondering why we ever did anything else.”
The solution is the so-called CYCLOPS junction, which stands for “Cycle Optimised Protected Signals.” It is said to maximize the opportunities for safe cycling—and walking—but does not affect the overall junction performance for motorists.
The CYCLOPS junction is an orbital cycle route separating cyclists from motor traffic. It is claimed that pedestrians also benefit from the design.
The junctions will be rolled out across Greater Manchester’s active-travel-oriented, 1,800-mile Bee Network, with the first to be installed soon in Bolton and Hulme, South Manchester.
Proposed CYCLOPS junction design for Bolton.
TFGM
In a statement, Boardman said:
Our traffic engineers have come up with a world-leading junction design that will be introduced in towns and cities not only across the U.K. but abroad too. The CYCLOPS approach makes foot and bike travel far safer and more direct without disrupting other modes.”
Several other U.K. cities, including Cambridge and Aberdeen, are planning to use the CYCLOPS design, which was first presented at the Traffic Signal Symposium, September 2018.
Graphic from Architectural Review, 1937
Carlton Reid
Protecting cyclists at junctions has been a known issue since the 1930s. “The benefit of the cycle-track is lost at the intersection (just where traffic segregation is most needed),” stated Architectural Review magazine in 1937.
Eric Claxton, a junior engineer in the Ministry of Transport in the 1930s, complained that the U.K.’s putative cycle track system—modelled on the Dutch example—“provided protection where the carriageway was safe but discharged the cyclists into the maelstrom of main traffic where the system was most dangerous.”
The Ministry of Transport’s Design & Layout of Roads in Built-up Areas report of 1946 demonstrated how cycleways should be carried around roundabouts, offering protection all of the way around, but no examples were built at the time.
More recently, there have been many plans to introduce Dutch-style roundabouts in the U.K.—and in the U.S.—with mixed results. In 2013 Transport for London worked on a design with the Transport Research Laboratory but Cambridge claims it is building the first truly Dutch example in U.K. after building a semi-Dutch-style roundabout in 2013.
Earlier this year Cambridgeshire County Council was awarded £550,000 by the Department for Transport (DfT) to create a Dutch-style roundabout at Fendon Road which has additional design elements compared the roundabout at Perne Road completed in 2013. The new scheme will provide cycle and pedestrian priority, including zebra crossings for pedestrians, and a dedicated red cycleway around the roundabout. Works will start in September, with completion early next year.
